The Paranormal In Frederick Stonehouse's The Great Lakes

The Great Lakes, also known as the “Five Sisters” has a long, rich past of folklore, legions, shipwrecks, ghost ships, and mysterious monsters lurking in the waters and along the immense shorelines. There is no lacking of alleged paranormal activity in the Great Lakes region, ghost stories and superstitious traditions from the past are still talked about today all over the globe. To find a good ghost story linking to the Great Lakes is an easy feat, many publications are written telling the tales of ghost ships, mysterious shipwrecks, haunted lighthouses and even whole towns which report paranormal phenomena. Many of the tales can be linked to a historical moment from the past. Frederick Stonehouse’s Haunted Lakes I (1997), was so popular

Paranormal is simply defined as; something “outside of” or “beyond” the normal, and is unexplainable by scientific laws. According Erich Goode the scientific community does recognize the paranormal or parapsychology as sciences, as has been labeled as a human behavior. Many respected nineteenth century intellectual scientist thought that the interest in the unknown, including religious dogma would no longer exist after the public was educated with scientific knowledge and influence in the future. Contrary to their belief, during the late twentieth century and early twenty first century a diligent growth of interest had immerged. (Goode 15) Paranormal research has become and extravagant trend in pop culture since the turn of the century. The reality paranormal television and realistic horror movies are receiving some of the top ratings, and more shows emerging every season with many networks joining in. (Becker 8) SyFy’s “Ghost Hunters”, has been pulling in high ratings for 10 seasons with 1.7 current total viewers. (Hibberd 1, 3) This type of reality TV opened an unknown door into paranormal tourism, as it showed the public how paranormal investigation and research was done,